Chapter 27
ROLAN
The first explosion hits at fourteen minutes past three.
I’m at my desk when it happens.
The floor moves before the bang arrives, the concussion traveling through the foundation of the house faster than air carries noise. My body is already moving.
Alexei comes through the door in under two minutes. His jacket is on, and his weapon is drawn.
“Dushku,” he says. “South wing. At least twelve men on the perimeter, possibly more. He came through the garden wall.”
“Casualties?”
“Two of ours down. Four of his. They’re still moving.”
“Mikhail?”
“Already on it.”
“I need him to move Anya and Elizabeth to the safe room. Now. Before this gets to the main house.” I look at him. “Don’t let them see anything.”
Alexei nods, already on his phone. He knows the priority without being told, has known it since the day Anya was born. The estate can sustain damage. Personnel can be replaced. The two people currently somewhere in the residential wing cannot.
“Safe room confirmed,” he says. “Mikhail is moving them.”
The knot in my chest releases a fraction. I pocket my phone and follow Alexei into the corridor. The noise outside gets louder with every step toward the south side of the house.
The garden is already gone.
Not destroyed — taken .
Dushku’s men have breached the outer wall at at least three points and established positions along the hedgerow that flanks the eastern approach. They’re armed at a level that exceeds what I’d expect from the Albanian operation alone. Heavier weapons. Coordinated movement.
He found allies.
I lead from the front like I always have. I need to know what’s happening, and the only way to know is to be there. My men work better with me among them. This is a fact, not an opinion, established over fifteen years.
We push them back from the hedgerow. Alexei takes the east flank. I take the center.
The fighting is close and fast. I stop counting the individual engagements. There’s a rhythm to it. I’ve been doing it long enough that the rhythm runs without conscious direction, which leaves the conscious part of my mind free to read the larger pattern.
The pattern is that they’re pushing toward the north side.
Toward the residential wing. Where the safe room is located.
I see the group break from the main force at the garden wall, four men, moving fast, using the cover of the ornamental hedgerow on the north approach. Not fighting toward us. Moving around us. My mind tells me I should send some of the men after them, surround them, and massacre them.
I’m already moving .
I can’t risk my girls getting hurt. My girls . The phrase surfaces, unbidden, in the three seconds I spend crossing the open ground between the hedgerow and the north wall.
I know it’s the wrong call. I know it before I’ve taken three steps. Breaking the center formation exposes the approach from the south. Pursuing four men while my position anchors forty is the kind of math that costs you battles.
I override it and reach the north wall.
The four men are pinned by two of mine at the corner — the intercept happened, the formation held without me. I engage from the opposite angle, and the engagement is brief. They are safe.
I’m turning back toward the main position when the explosion hits.
White.
Then nothing.
Alexei’s voice, at a distance that feels wrong, saying my name over and over.
“Rolan. Rolan, look at me.”
I blink up at him. “How long was I out?” I grumble.
“Three minutes. They had a device on the wall. We didn’t find it in the sweep.” His jaw is tight. “Can you stand?”
I stand. The world adjusts itself. My head pounds like a fucking tin drum. “The girls.”
“Still in the safe room. They are fine.”
The pain softens a touch. I run the inventory of my own body — head, functional with significant complaint. Right arm, limited range. I’ll assess later. Everything else is sore and aching, but operational.
“Survivors,” I say.
Alexei’s expression flickers. “Seven. We have them in the south courtyard.”
I look at my hands. The blood there is not mine — most of it isn’t mine. I think about what I know and what I still need to know, and the seven men in the south courtyard are the fastest path between those two things.
“Take me there,” I command.
They give me the information I need.
It takes some time, but not too much. Dushku has consolidated. Two additional organizations, one Chicago-based and one operating out of New York. Mercenary component, six or eight men hired explicitly for the perimeter breach.
Resources that exceed what the Albanian operation should be able to access. Money is moving from somewhere I haven’t identified yet.
I stand in the south courtyard and look at what’s left. The problem is only partly solved. I should call Mikhail and get a full status before I go inside.
I call him. No answer.
And then I’m moving. Through the south entrance, through the corridor, the estate going from combat to aftermath. It’s when I’m in the main foyer that I finally see them.
Ellie has Anya’s face pressed against her. Her hands are over Anya’s ears. Her eyes are open, and she’s looking at the room, terrified.
Fuck .
She sees me.
Her eyes go over my body, assessing damage.
Anya’s face is still pressed against her, hidden from the mayhem.
She’s protecting her.
She came up from the safe room. I don’t know how or when, but her first instinct was to put her body between danger and my daughter.
“Back to the safe room.”
She doesn’t move.
She’s staring at me .
I can’t stand it. She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t have to see me like this. I take a step forward.
“ NOW! ”
Anya flinches. The fear from my daughter lands in my chest.
Ellie starts moving.
She doesn’t look at me again. She keeps Anya’s face turned away, and she steers them toward the corridor, back toward the stairs.
I watch them go.
Alexei appears at my elbow. He glances at me, then in the direction they fled.
“The perimeter is clear,” he says. “We’re securing the south approach now.”
“Good.”
“Your head?—”
“Is fine.”
Both of us know that isn’t true. The adrenaline is starting to wear off. My skull is being ripped apart from the inside.
But he doesn’t argue. He knows better.
I look at the room. My house. The evidence of what was done here.
The expression on Ellie’s face when she looked at me flashes through my mind. I know what she saw. I’ve seen it on other faces, but never on hers before.
I don’t like it.
Not one fucking bit.
“Call the team to clean everything up. Erase this attack from the face of the earth. Like it never happened,” I order Alexei.
I don’t wait for a response.